Took a bunch of old Wizards back with me during my trip to my hometown for my grandma's funeral. Read them with my kids. Saw the Mark Millar interview and feature on his "
Ultimate Comics: Avengers". Loved the sweet Carlos Pacheco artwork. I picked up the hardcover collection as soon as I was back in KL. Read it in two sittings. Actually finished reading it after a spectacular "
buka puasa" meal with my wife at my workplace. Yes, we messed up the place with our satay, murtabak, nasi dagang, etc. After cleaning up, I read the final two chapters and closed the book with a satisfied smile on my face. Granted, this run isn't especially ambitious in comparison with Millar's previous outings on
The Ultimates with Bryan Hitch. In fact, it isn't even half as ambitious as his
Ultimate X-Men,
Spider-Man or
Wolverine stuff. It's just a collection of six issues of very entertaining, no social commentary, no metatextual nonsense, COMIC featuring lots of crazy action and the coolest character ever created:
Ultimate Captain America. Carlos Pacheco's artwork has this breezy effect in this one. It's not busy like his collaboration with Kurt Busiek on
Avengers Forever or
Superman: Fall of Camelot. It's a little closer to his
Green Lantern work with Geoff Johns. You get the feeling that the man is simply enjoying his work and his work is drawing some super-fantastic action panels with all the emotion that you can hope for.
Finally, yes, Ultimate Red Skull really is Cap's son and Millar tried to make his story a sad and tragic one but somehow you'll find it difficult to symphatize with this messed-up sadist. That being the case, the manipulative ways of Ultimate Nick Fury and Gregory Stark (Tony's brother) make the Ultimate Red Skull look pretty tame in comparison.
First, there was the "
waiting-for-the-trade" trend that swept through comicsdom. Now, it's waiting for the crazy oversized hardback. Yes. I did not buy the individual issues of "
Secret Invasion" by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu when they came out monthly two years ago. I also did not buy the softcover trade that came out soon after. I waited and waited and waited. Then all my waiting paid off and Marvel finally released the oversized hardback, which I seized straight off the shelves yesterday and finished reading an hour ago. Kinokuniya was having some special Geek-Month sale and everyone was snatching up copies of Bendis' "
Siege". But little ol' me haven't even read "
Secret Invasion" so I bought that instead. And boy, am I glad that I did. The below are the things that I liked about this book:
- Queen Veranke aka Spider-Woman. I am totally in love with this character because of her nobility, faith and self-sacrifice. I think many fans share my opinion which explains why the return of the *real* Jessica Drew didn't really spark any interest. In fact, if you think about it, the Skrull Spider-Woman was what brought the New Avengers together and plotted the first 5-6 years of Marvel stories since the Bendis-Era began!
- The Return of Nick Fury. The real one. With the big guns and the attitude. Not the Sam Jackson one from the Ultimate Universe or the movies. This was the Nick Fury that you wanted to grow up and become. This was the Steranko Fury that romanced dangerous women and showed up to save the day while saying stuff like, "Well, my god has a hammer!"
- The Return of Bobbi Morse aka Mockingbird. As I've said many times before, Mockingbird was the first female comicbook character that I fell in love with. I'm just glad that she's back. Wait till she learns about Hawkeye's affairs with the late Wasp, the Scarlet Witch and Echo!
- Norman Osborn and the Shot-Heard-Around-The-World. I love it that SI ended but set up Dark Reign (that has also ended with the Siege crossover). It was great to see the ascension of Normie.
- The Hood and his army against the Skrull Army. The Hood is slowly becoming my favourite new villain in the 616-MU. Unlike Wilson Fisk (Kingpin), the Hood is an all-around action guy. You can't imagine old Fisk leading the charge of the villains into battle (like Theoden leading the Rohirrim in LOTR) but you sure can picture the Hood doing that with battle-cries and guns blazing.
- Leinil Francis Yu's artwork. SI wouldn't be so good without Yu's crazy/frenetic artwork.
- The "Embrace Change" Advertisements. Yes, they are all reprinted in the book along with tons of extras like interviews, sketches and scripts. If you need more extras, go to the official Embrace Change website.
- Free geek book. Finally, after all the discounts, I literally got the book "The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl" for free. It's by Barry Lyga and it's unashamedly fanboy-ish. Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman get mentioned quite a lot in the book.
